Essay Question For Next Test

Friday 2/15



Karenia brevis is the dinoflagellate responsible for the red tide in Florida and Texas. When it's in high concentrations, it causes the water to take on a reddish or pinkish color. It uses its two flagellas to move more easly through the water.


It is harmful to marine animals and humans, causing death and neurotoxic shellfish poisoning. Symptoms of neurotoxic shellfish poisoning include vomiting, nausea, and a variety of neurological symptoms such as slurred speech. As a result, the Gulf coast economy is negatively affected because it prevents people from being able to eat shellfish. Because the fisherman can't sell it, they economy takes a dive.

What I've Learned About Plankton

Thursday 2/14





I've learned many things about plankton this week, but I'll condense it to 5 main points. Unlike what I have believed my whole life, plankton are the world's main source of oxygen, not trees. They produce 80% of the Earth's oxygen. One reason why they are so important is that they are at the bottom of the food chain in the ocean. Without them the pyramid would fall apart. And lastly it improves immune function and brain health. Diatoms are single alga that has a cell wall of silica. Dinoflagellates are a single celled organism with two flagella and a cellulose covering. They form one of the chief constituents of plankton. Some dinoflagellates cause harmful effects on marine life because of the toxins they carry. Lastly, there are two main types of plankton, phytoplankton and zooplankton. Zooplankton are microscopic invertebrate animals that swim or drift in water while phytoplankton are microscopic plants in the ocean.

Bottle-nose dolphin

Wednesday 2/13



Common Name: Bottle-nose dolphin
Scientific Name: Tursiops truncatus
Habitat: coastal: adapt to warm, shallow waters because of its smaller body.
offshore: adapt to colder, deeper waters because they are bigger, they conserve heat.
Reproduction: In Florida, the females is sexually mature at 5-12 years, males at 10-13 years.
While in South Africa: females are sexually mature at 9-11 years, males at about 14.5 years.
Status: not considered to be endangered; its near-shore distribution, though, makes it vulnerable to environmental degradation, direct exploitation, and problems associated with local fisheries
Facts: They live 20 years or less based off the census in Florida.

The gestational period is about 12 months.
The adults eats about 5% of its body weight and a nursing mother eats 8%.
Issue: The Japanese and Taiwanese kill them for food. They are exposure to pollutants and biotoxins.
Some have parasites and other bacteria. They are often injured or killed due to fishing gear.
Reason: I picked the Bottlenose dolphin because my mom has told me about how she got to swim with dolphins before she had me. I've always thought that would be such a cool experience, and am really intrigued by this animal :)

Plankton Race

Tuesday 2/12

The most difficult part of this activity was getting it to go extremely slow. The first design ended up being the last one. We used a small fuzzy ball (like in the picture below) with a toothpick inside. If I could do this over I would change the design by just using the small plastic square we were given, it wouldve gone slower. The fact that we had free reign of the design without any regulations is what I liked best.

Harmful Algae Blooms

Monday 2/11

Algal blooms that have harmful or toxic phytoplankton are HABs. Because they look red or brown, they are also called red tides.

One of the causes of harmful algae blooms are saxitoxins. Saxitoxins are a large toxin family referred to as the Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) toxins. When toxigenic marine dinoflagellates are eaten by shellfish, toxins concentrate and then the people who eat them consume it and get sick. The algal species itself can grow incredibly fast when conditions are right, like below.



Preventing HABs:
-control the things that create blooms such as the leaching and runoff of excess nutrients
-devices that result in the mixing of lakes (for example, by air bubbling), that enhance vertical mixing of the phytoplankton
-increasing the water flow through lakes or estuaries
-use compounds to chemically-precipitate phosphorus, and then take out the sediment by dredging, when managing an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas
-adding alum, ferric salts or clay products so it will settle the phosphorus to the sediment layer
-suction dredging the top half meter of sediments

However, these efforts can be expensive and are best suited to small affected water bodies.

In 1953 the longest single red-tide episode was recorded, staying 18-months along the Florida Gulf Coast. There was a catastrophic amount of deaths of marine animals that were recorded from Tarpon Springs to Key West. During these events, there were reports of dead bottlenose dolphins, sea turtles, and numerous fish species.

Marine Plankton

Friday 2/8

They provide food for other animals.

The majority of our oxygen supply comes from plankton.
They show us where currents are and where healthy ecosystems are.

Dinoflagellates are apart of a group called alveolates. they are most common in marine and freshwater phytoplankton. some are heterotrophic. Diatoms, on the other other hand they are unicellular, photosynthetic algae with cell walls that contain silica.

Sea Star

Thursday 2/7

Common Name: Sea Star
Scientific Name: Asteroidea
Adaptations: A sea star has five arms, if one of them is cut off it can regenerate or grow back.
Habitat: lives on the sea floor
Interesting facts: they don't have a brain, only a nerve center that allows information to pass within the star, they are also omnivorous
I chose the sea star because for some reason I've always been fascinated with them. I think they're so freaking cool :)